2007-06-12

Taste

I hate being sick.

I can't taste anything so the one joy I have in life, eating, is pointlessly tedious.See food.Lift food to mouth.Nothing.No satisfaction and weirdly, it's sometimes actually unpleasant.I never thought I'd see the day when tuna salad is unpleasant but if you can't taste it, it's pretty much just a chewy, gaggy mess.

Also, I'm weak.I couldn't open a thing of Gatorade.I had to take scissors and prey the lid off.I was at my desk, of course, and it was about halfway through my trying to saw off the cap that I realized, "If this thing blows, I am in a shitload of trouble with IT."

Because I am at work.I am sick and I am at work.Everyone else does it, which is how I got sick in the first place.Fuck it.I don't wanna spend my paid time off at home with a terrible head cold at a professionally inconvenient time, either.Every painfully gross sneeze has been dedicated to a colleague and/or the children in that particular person's life.And I don't give a shit about Karma, either.I'm tired of being the accommodating nice person who apologizes for stepping on toes, not because it's the right thing to do but because I've become so clipped that I genuinely feel bad when, for example, people I know roll over me at a smoothie shop computer and I storm off saying, "fine. It's all yours."

Yeah.These chicks I know were on a rant about something and I was waiting for my drink.I hopped online and was going to check my MySpace when I hear, "NO! Check on-line! Look! There's a computer here! You're not gonna believe this! I can't believe he said this! Go to ____!""What? Who said what? I was kind of going to check my MySpace... ""Don't worry - you'll see hold on... okay.... click that!""I did - I was really doing something here.... ""Just click it!""Shut up. I did and it's going there." I actually told someone to shut up and I meant it. I was not being sarcastic. Then I asked again what this was all about.And again I was told to just wait.Then I said, "You know what? It's all yours. I was seriously doing something but nevermind."And I left the store.

And I'm not apologizing when I see them.It was rude and I have a right to stand up for myself.I quit doing that for awhile, in the name of seeing everything from all sides and being really fucking accommodating.That's not working out so well.There are times in life when you need to take a stand and get it through your short-haired head that you have a RIGHT to be doing the things you are doing and to be treated with a little respect.

Really, the only way to get some respect is to actually respect yourself.I respected myself enough to not want to waste my time being steam-rolled by a couple of chicks who were carried away and who were not willing to let me in on the reason for their excitement.

I also respect myself enough to lay down a rule and to believe that it has nothing to do with control or manipulation and everything to do with being the only way for things to work out.There's only one way for something in my life to happen.There aren't compromises or several ways of doing it - there's one way and it's permanent and any negative consequences of it would have to be dealt with later.Plus, I refuse to own that decision since it's not mine to make. There's no "if/then" promise of anything.There's an "if/maybe", I guess.Maybe.

Anyway.Back to being sick and how unfun it is.

Talking on the phone make my teeth hurt, lying down makes my head hurt, and sitting up makes my eyes hurt.

So the next time someone brings disease into my office, I hope that person(s) understands the fury that he or she is unleashing.

I'm not currently interested in being considerate or polite or any of the other things that have resulted in this weird perception that it's perfectly okay to treat me like I'm a barfing dog, just because I'm going to slink out the door until I'm certain that the storm has passed.

I'm much more interested in having a spine that I have been in a couple of years so really, if that's coming off as me being a shitty person or whatever.... I'm not sure that I'm too concerned these days.

I think I would rather be seen as a person who has a backbone than as one who has nothing in life but her ailing mother and some cats.No offense to those who do but.... I don't think I'm ready to cash in and call curtains on all of the possibilities I used to think I had in front ofme.Not at age 33, anyway.Certainly not while I can't taste anything. If I'm giving up and moving in with my parents, I better be able to taste the food I would be using to mourn the complete loss of my youth.